Infrequentia
by Buko-koko
Summary: Allen, with all honesty, isn’t always ‘fine’. When he starts to turn to dangerous methods of forgetting, Lavi would do anything to stop him from hurting himself. Lavi/Allen ALCOHOL ABUSE


**Infrequentia**

**Rated: T – ALCOHOL, not fun, happy alcohol either. Other suggestive themes, language. (This may change. It depends if I want to ruin minds quickly or not)**

**Summary: Allen, with all honesty, isn't always 'fine'. When he starts to turn to dangerous methods of forgetting, Lavi would do anything to stop him from hurting himself. Lavi/Allen ALCOHOL  
**

**A/N: I have. Two stories. That people are depending on me to finish. But I'm still a terrible author who is honestly too lazy and uninspired to write for those two stories right know and will turn her attention to other things (...I'll get back to those, I promise, though). Anyway, welcome to this story. I wanted to write another Laven but it's an AU and I'm probably never going to post it. This is more like my stress relief Laven that I wrote because I like torturing Allen the most (I'm terrible sob). If you're wondering, Infrequentia (I believe) means emptiness in Latin. But yeah. Also, this story mostly started because I wanted to try writing Drunk!Allen (which is conveniently also how this story starts) so I'm sorry for being a bum and writing depressing stuff that is just way off and enjoy the exploration of the human mind whahuu.**

**P.S. this is a 'what if' type of plot. My 'what if' is "What if Allen really did crack under the pressure of his life?"**

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_"In the midst of the most painful faces, Angels show up in the strangest places."_

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-Looking for Angels, Skillet_

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* * *

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_Three Months Prior_

Silly, that's what it was. The way everything seemed to meld together in front of him didn't make it any less obvious. Alcohol did crazy things to the body.

Surprisingly, this was his first encounter with it. Needless to say it was quite the experience. Dancing colors and inanimate objects gave him quite the carefree mood, but something inside him didn't set. It felt like it would _never_ set. It felt like nothing could make things right. He would forever be missing _something_. _How depressing this situation seemed._

Oh but it's true. His fingers gripped so hard onto the railing of the stairs his black knuckles were beginning to turn white. He felt his golden golem worriedly perch on his head, biting at the strands as if it would help him get a grip on reality. But even the golem smelt it. He _reeked_ of it. And yet his other hand was clenched dreadfully tight upon the bottle's neck, shaking like an earthquake inside his head. It was ear wrenching to hear the sound of the metal beneath his left hand bend to leave a perfectly shaped mark that looked discreetly like an inverted version of his hand.

And those colors danced faster, faster, and faster until he realized in pain that he lost something precious. Until he was eventually forced to remember what he initially sought to forget.

_He stood there, distraught. Blood soaked the broken window, an untouched crime scene. And through what were supposed to be clear shards, rain hopped its way in, soaking anything and everything in its path. But the blood didn't wash. It stained permanently into the room._

_And it smelt _dreadful_._

_"Tim just suddenly got up and came here." A pause, dramatic, "Is that blood?"_

_Komui looked pained just to see him at the door. He looked pained just to see the boy confused. His hand was just millimeters from tampering with the blood on the tip of the glass. _

_The blood was there, but not the body._

_"But, who's…?"_

_And as he said half the question, the little, yellow creature was floating among the profuse amount of blood. It looked tireless and anxious but overall, _scared_, fluttering around with no direction, lying on top of the blood-soaked half-face mask. A hole was punched through the top. It resembled the wound of a terribly strong bullet._

_And he took his question back, eyes widening in pain. A mask, a gun, blood. It suddenly made sense._

_It suddenly felt like everything completely _stopped.

He was never the best master. He was never the best guardian. Everything about him left Allen with a distasteful need to throw up. But he was still there, a sense of shelter and stability, a guardian for an abandoned child nonetheless. _Gone_.

If anything, second to Mana, he was the second thing to a father Allen could ever possibly believe to get. _Gone._

And with that lovely note, he wanted to scream. Because nothing else mattered in his mind. What he wouldn't give for a better life with an actual family. What he wouldn't give for the happiness someone his age should be allowed to have. Just looking at Lenalee and Komui made him sick with envy. Because he never had someone to call "family" and when he thought he was allowed to have it, it was brutally stripped from him like a position title. But Mana and Cross had meant _much, much_ more.

They meant much, much more than his own life.

In fact, those could be considered in the same boat.

The bubbling beer stung his throat, the bitter taste imprinting itself all over his tongue and clothes, hand too shaky to properly hold it above his head. He heard someone talking to him; in fact, he could have sworn he saw a figure, but everything in front of him was nothing more than a blur of depressing dancing colors. They danced a tune that was written for his life.

"M' kay." He heard himself say though he could barely comprehend what was being said to him. It seemed so fast. It started to sound like the squeaking of a rodent. But somewhere deep inside the subconscious of his brain, he knew that this was the alcohol's doing. The figure was speaking at a normal speed whether he could understand it or not.

"No." He said after the other responded to his previous slur. The answer was no better than the last and Allen's subconscious realized how dragged out that 'o' was. Abnormally dragged out, it was.

There he was, making conversations with someone who could have been better off ordering a wall.

"Bed" was the only thing he heard from the other before he made an unintelligible noise and dropped the bottle. The other figure gasped as the item broke next to his foot, shattering glass spreading about and over the ledge of the stairs. His left hand distorted the railing just a little more, the sound of shattering glass hurting a little more than it should. And was that a _scream_?

Then his bare foot (if he could possibly realize _why_ he had left his room without his beloved knee-high boots) was surrounded by the bubbling liquid. It felt nice somehow. The figure before him was yelling now and he couldn't remember leaning on something warm. He couldn't remember why he was crying and rambling about nothing and anything, gripping onto body accompanied fabric.

And he couldn't remember who that was, but he loved the way the figure's lips melded against his own, carefully filling the gap he recently obtained, temporarily.

No amount of beer fixed what he had been feeling while a simple kiss left lingering on his lips did.

And when he woke up, it was gone.

* * *

**Chapter 1: These Stages**

"You have been throwing up for," the young man leaned on the doorway, peering out for a few seconds to examine the hands of the clock before looking in again, "ten minutes now. Is it possible for you to have that much food in your stomach?" The white-haired teen gave a lazy glare in the redhead's direction before leaning down into the trashcan to give it another helping of his bile. "Wait, never mind. I'm pretty sure it's possible."

"You're a great support, Lavi. It's wonderful to have you here," was all Allen could muster before clutching the trashcan and throwing up again. Lavi rolled his eyes and knelt next to him, holding the longer part of Allen's white fringe back.

"Where did you even get all that beer?" The younger was surprised he understood that sentence behind all the glaring siren noises that he was pretty sure wasn't going on outside of the corners of his mind. He was going crazy.

"Master," he mumbled before gagging again, eyes wanting to shut away from the pile of puke in his trashcan. "Master's leftovers."

"Oh," Lavi said plainly, rubbing the boy's back, somehow absolutely unfazed by the unfriendly liquid before the two of them. Then again, Lavi had seen a lot worse. _Allen_ had seen a lot worse. Yet, looking at his own bile just made him sicker.

For a while, Allen frequented gagging, staring, gagging, and throwing up. Lavi, being the proper assistant for the first time in the ten minutes (in which he should have decided to help), sat next to him, staring blankly at the trashcan too. It wasn't that he enjoyed the look of floating massive amounts of food in stomach acid or had a strange want to make himself throw up, but he was lost in thought. Whatever Allen had ended up doing wasn't particularly normal behavior. And it bothered him that the incident happened at all.

Both felt it, the weight of the question holding onto them both.

_Why did you do it_?

And Allen didn't even need to turn to him to be able to translate what question was written on Lavi's face. But he would feign stupidity because even if the question was asked aloud, something inside him knew he couldn't answer it.

Because, he didn't really know _why_ he did it either.

"You okay now?" The older asked sincerely when the smaller sat back with a blank look on his face. Despite the joking from earlier, neither looked lighthearted. The entire room felt downbeat under the pressure of their thoughts.

"Yeah." Allen said, trying to get rid of the last bit of fuzz in his vision. His skull-breaking headache caused by the screeching sound wasn't helping a bit of it. He felt a warm arm around his shoulders.

"Abusing alcohol isn't smart. I was pretty sure General Cross taught you at least that."

And it was funny because Allen thought the exact same thing.

It felt like the little things he thought he knew were fading slowly from him. It felt like they no longer mattered to him.

"Lavi," Allen mumbled, leaning into the redhead's hold. Not because he liked it, he was sure they looked utterly wrong, utterly _gay,_ at the moment, but he needed support. Both mentally and physically. "I don't think I know myself anymore."

He wasn't sure where the statement came from. Somehow he wanted to blame it on the lingering effects of the alcohol or the shock of his loss. But at the same time, he knew better than to blame it on anything at all. He knew deep inside he really wanted to get that out.

"Don't worry." He heard the elder say vaguely, "I don't think there's ever a long enough span of time for anyone to get to know themselves." Allen raised his head a bit to protest. He didn't want to hear it like that. He didn't want to think that it was hopeless. Because at that point he was the only person he felt like he was allowed to know. But Lavi interrupted him, "You're a teenager, you're still changing. Just give it time."

To that, Allen couldn't respond. He just leaned his head back and groaned, begging the noise to leave.

He was at least able to retort, "You're a teenager, too, Lavi."

The redhead protested (for he was moving towards his twenties) but for Allen, if the moments like these didn't happen, it was hard to think the redhead was really his age.

The two laughed at the silence.

* * *

It wasn't hard for the entire order to start another round of rumors afterwards. Apparently, a finder was injured by dropping glass shards, to which Allen was sure happened in real life and felt terribly sorry for, but the rumor stretched it into a wonderful tall tale where Allen had purposely smashed the bottle into the finder's limb.

The finder had a minor cut no larger than ten centimeters on his right arm because he happened to walk by when Allen dropped his beer bottle. If Allen had purposely hurt the man, seeing as in his drunken state he would probably be holding the bottle with his left arm, the finder would most likely have been in the infirmary for God knows how long. But that was the better thought of it because he also could have been _dead_.

Still, the man had the devil's gut to tell everyone a story they ate up because it gave them a better thing to do and something to argue and amend while working their eggheads off at work.

"I saw you wallowing around yesterday but thought you were just tired so I thought nothing of it, are you sure you're okay?" Lenalee was looking at him with absolute sincerity. The way her mouth twisted into a pout looked almost adorable but Allen could just imagine how his blood-shot, baggy stare contrasted in full to it.

"Yes, I'm sorry for worrying you." He responded in all politeness. Just like always. His feet were dragging across the ground as he beckoned his body and mind to stay awake long enough to clear things up with at least his friends.

Lenalee looked dreadfully worried despite the answer. She pouted, "What really happened to you? I've just been hearing you got a bad headache."

Allen laughed to himself because that's not what _he heard_ about himself throughout the morning.

"Yup, it was just a headache." Lavi responded, grinning happily, arms folded behind his head. Allen couldn't help but turn to him with a thankful face before nodding at Lenalee to back up the statement.

Though the female didn't seem convinced, she relented, to Allen's surprise. Surely if they had told her the truth, he would both get an earful _and_ a facefull but both males were sure he didn't need _that_ at the moment. Even if the intent behind it was meaningfully out of compassion. But Lenalee's compassion hurt.

"Lenalee, your brother wants you!" A finder called, peeking into the lobby. As soon as he caught Allen's face, however, he backed away like a lost pup back into the hallway as if he had seen the devil. The white-haired teen, looking dejected, forced a smile for at least Lenalee.

"I think it's a mission, good luck, Lenalee."

"Thanks. Feel better, okay? Headaches aren't fun."

And with that innocent note, she strut off after the finder.

But both knew, despite the fact she had disregarded the rumors, Lenalee was _not_ a stupid girl. Allen was only temporarily safe.

"Thanks, I guess." Allen mumbled as soon as Lenalee was out of earshot. Lavi shrugged as if to say "it's nothing" then let the two of them return to silence. The lobby was always such a lonely place. It wouldn't be a surprise if half the order forgot about its existence. If anything people were too busy alternating the mess hall, library, and workrooms. The lobby was mainly for leisure and easy conversation, something the entire order felt like they lacked.

"Were you around?" Allen interjected when they were both dazed and looking off into the distance, "You know, when I was smashed?" It was a surprise to wake up to Lavi leaning over him like a hawk with a grave face. When he expected scolding, the young man simply made a joke ("You look like you were ran over by a train a few times, fought the Noah and lost, then did something to Lenalee to get Komui to seek revenge on you, bean sprout.") and soon after, Allen sought out a trashcan.

Lavi seemed to think about it for a moment as if looking for a way to answer before sighing, "Yeah. I kinda brought you to your room. I think Timcanpy was really worried about you because he tugged my scarf all the way to where you were.

"You were about to fall off the edge of the railway, you know." The redhead bit at the mug beneath his lips. _As if those lips wanted to touch something_. The younger had to shake his head, not quite sure where the observation had come from. He decided to turn his attention to other things.

But Allen found that he couldn't remember ever being on the stairs or knowing how he ended up there. He remembered in the shock and horror of his own master's death, he ended up crying, alone, in one of Cross's old wine and beer closets. Around that time, he remembered popping off the cap and trying it. At first he was reluctant, but then took a sip. _It tasted disgusting_.

Yet, he grabbed an entire six pack and snuck back to his room.

"Why did you do that?"

Allen was pulled from his attempt to remember the previous afternoon by the question. The ends of his lips tugged down.

Because he really just didn't know how to answer that.

His eyes glossed over.

"I'm… hungry." said Allen. Effectively, he stood up and hurriedly walked out the room.

It irritated Lavi.

The way Allen had lost the rhythm in his step, the way his voice strained to talk, and the way his eyes _oh god_, those eyes had glossed over when the subject rose.

"Allen!" he called. The boy paused just as he had one foot out the door. "I'm a little hungry too."

When the white-haired teen turned around, he looked as if he wanted to object. But those tired eyes simply stared in curiosity and Lavi knew what the question was.

But though he pushed the line a little too much on the usual occasion, he knew better than to do so during times like those. So he gave a reassuring grin.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to lecture you or anything." He stood up and caught up to the boy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Allen protested for a different reason but ended up letting him drag him to the mess hall. But Lavi saw. Even if his words were the same and his smile looked just as fake and see-through as it was, it just wasn't _Allen_. He wanted that _Allen_ back.

Somewhere, deep inside him, he knew he wasn't supposed to _care_. He wasn't supposed to even _try_.

But with every little quirk and trait that seemed to make _his_ Allen Walker that went missing, he wanted to wrap his arms around those thin shoulders and affectionately say, "It'll be alright."

* * *

_Present Time_

"Tim, stop it." Allen swat at his Golem to give him back his piece of cake. Kanda, who stood to the left of him, gave a growl of annoyance before walking what seemed like thirty yards away before finally feeling satisfied with distance. Allen kept his annoyance about this inside, thankfully.

Link was perched on the wall next to him, obsessively rereading his log as if it would speak to him the truth about _something_. Allen sleeps, Allen eats, Allen does paperwork, then Allen sleeps again. This must point to Allen being quite human. The silver haired boy couldn't help but realize that this was what it said for probably more than half the entire log, save the few occurrences such as the zombified order (Link had retrieved his log from Komurin Ex a little after the incident under oath he wouldn't report Komui to the higher ups about his inefficiency to stopping a widespread epidemic that _he caused, _and made the order look worse than it would have if the Noah scheduled a surprise full-out attack) and the level four. Other than that, Allen eats, Allen sleeps, Allen reads a book, then Allen sleeps again.

"Hey, I found a nice hotel!" The two males looked up to a smiling redhead who was running up to them. Within what seemed to be an instant, Kanda reappeared to follow the three of them to the location. Everyone wanted to either question or comment on his appearance but decided the best they could get out of it was a rough argument from the straight-cut fringed teen.

"Ch, it'd better be good." Kanda mumbled ungratefully even having just rejoined the group. Lavi mumbled something about not knowing his tastes therefore not knowing at all and Kanda just retorted with his usual unintelligible grunt. Allen wanted to protest to this behavior but Lavi waved his arm as if to say "it's okay, let's just let him be a grumpy butt, that Yuu" and Kanda must have somehow heard "Yuu" in that silent gesture because he argued shortly after, "Don't call me Yuu" to which Lavi chuckled playfully at.

The four (three) of them were simply supposed to lower a large Akuma uprising in southern Germany. Lenalee was supposed to accompany them but Komui roughly refused to let her leave the order with four men. Even if said four men were probably the males he trusted the most with his Lenalee (it's not like she hadn't been pitted with them as the only female before).

Still, neither of the exorcists could complain as they were shipped off to Germany in dreadful haste.

Allen, being the curious teenager he was, looked down a well.

"I think I see coins down there." Tim fluttered around his head.

"So?" Kanda grunted. Despite his response, the long haired Japanese teen took a peek inside of the deep hole anyway.

Tim fluttered downwards causing Allen to yell a scolding, "Timcanpy!" The golden golem disobeyed the yell and flew deeper unsteadily. It stopped as it perched on the bucket's ledge, half of it bathed in the slightly clean and slightly murky water from below him. A golden ring that made Tim's gold look dull sat acutely within the water in the bucket.

"What happened?" Lavi and Link immediately rushed over as soon as Allen yelled down the well. "What's that?" The redhead asked curiously, the sight of the gleaming item catching his eye like candy to a child. "It looks expensive."

But Allen was already on the crank, rolling it as fast and as carefully as he possibly could until Tim reappeared on the surface.

"At least it's not a cat this time." The white-haired teen grumbled, disregarding the ring and snatching Timcanpy back. The golem had already grown too large for the normal cat to eat him but the worry still remained in Allen as a force of habit.

On the other hand, Lavi reached in to grab the shining object.

"A ring?" The inspector asked curiously, jotting a few notes down about Allen's behavior before turning his attention back to the object.

Kanda was visibly trying to look disinterested because his eyes kept looking at it too.

"What's that?" Allen said as soon as he was done reprimanding Tim. Lavi used his scarf to rub off a bit of the mold that was surrounding it. Whoever owned that well is heavily in danger of catching a bad stomach fungus disease.

"It's a ring." Kanda mumbled indifferently, grabbing his bag and adding with impatience, "Well, where's the hotel?"

"Wait a moment." Lavi said almost emotionlessly, making sure to take every pigment of dirt left on the object. Obviously on his last string (like he always is), the Japanese teen stomped off in a random direction. His group members decided silently to let him go as he would show up eventually when they were ready to leave anyway.

The ring was golden and it had the prettiest ruby held by strong golden brackets at the top. Upon being cleaned, it gleamed relentlessly in the noon sun. "It's beautiful." Lavi said, holding it up to the light. Allen didn't say anything, watching the ring as well. Link probably took a second to look at it but immediately returned to his beloved notes and resumed his position of backing out of the scene like a backdrop in a play.

Lavi put his arm down and shrugged, "Well, we'd better go before Yuu finds a way to put another stick up his ass."

Allen laughed at that, quite amused by the way Lavi had put it.

And Lavi was happy that Allen laughed like that because he was sure he hadn't heard _that_ musical laugh come from the boy for the past three months.

So he grinned, proud of himself, then lead them towards the hotel.

* * *

They packed quickly before Kanda assumed a room for himself and went to sleep. Seeing as it was only eight, Allen and Lavi left him to go explore the town a bit. It was still Northern-Central Germany, they weren't quite in their destination point so Kanda had a right to fall asleep to the idea of exploration. Link looked like he wanted to go for a moment but also turned out, giving Allen one of the few times he got away from being examined.

Not that he minded. It's not like he did anything too bad, had his conscious permit. The only thing he particularly remembered doing wrong was…

He licked the top of his mouth, trying to rule out the lingering memory of the alcohol in his throat.

"It looks like a wedding ring." Allen looked up from his thoughts to stare at Lavi. He was bringing the ring they had retrieved earlier up to the setting sun, leaning on the railing of the bridge that stretched over a relatively small river that ran across the end of the city. The way the bright, contrasting lights of the twilit sky reflected on the shimmering mini-ripples in the water made the atmosphere lighthearted. It wasn't a surprise to see couples romantically leaning on each other around them.

"It kind of does." Allen answered, returning his attention the ring. Something about the sound of lips eating each other seemed just a tad disgusting.

Lavi turned the ring a bit then tried to push it onto his thick, callused hand. Though it was apparent in the beginning, he found the ring didn't fit then made a face in disappointment before turning to Allen.

"Hey, let me see your hand."

Allen stared at him blankly for a moment, "Me? Why?"

He didn't get an answer, rather, his left hand (he inwardly argued if it was going to fit _anywhere_ it would most likely be the right hand) had its glove pulled delicately off before the ring was slipped easily onto the finger to the right of his pinky.

"Ah, so pretty!" Lavi complimented as Allen was still shocked on _how_ the band was able to slip over the ridges and bumps of his disgusting left hand. What was worse, it felt almost _comfortable_ to have a ring there.

Despite that observation, he pushed his hand back onto Lavi, "Alright, alright, somehow your hand is fatter than my left hand, can you take it off now?"

"It's not fat." Lavi protested, pouting. Which was true, Lavi was one of the lithest people Allen knew besides himself. "And keep it on, it looks nice there."

Lavi's fingers moved over the dark, disgusting, protruding ridges on the fingers of his left hand, leaving a warm feeling he was _sure_ he hadn't felt on that hand since Mana's existence. His face translated the nostalgia and, well, delight he felt in a blush that he used his right hand to hide quickly before he ripped his left hand away from Lavi's grip.

"Stop that, these people are going to get the wrong idea." he whispered, quickly gripping his glove from the redhead and slipping it back on, over the ringed finger.

But Lavi just gave him a lopsided grin. He looked a bit hurt, but above all he looked dazed. The way his green eye looked at him almost screamed a feeling of want. It screamed it wanted to feel, to…

Love.

Love? Was that what it said? Allen shook his head, blushing and looking at the river again.

Love was what he thought of Mana as a father. Love was the feeling that made him feel complete. Love was what raised him and taught him to grow up right. Love was what tore him apart from the insides when it was stripped from him.

He, honestly, didn't need to hurt like that again.

* * *

They ended up wandering the streets silently once all the couples dispersed as the moon took over the sun-abandoned sky. It was darker than it should be for a night and neither knew how lost they probably could get but neither wanted to wander back just yet.

"It's kind of peaceful here, huh?" Lavi asked after a while. Allen nodded in the darkness, or at least Lavi thought Allen nodded in the darkness. He trusted his gut on it, "It kinda makes me wonder what it would like to live down here."

"Yeah." Allen mumbled, sounding hurt. Lavi knew he had lived like that once, even if it was as a clown. He was a slightly normal child then, before his adoptive father died. Yet, he asked the question. Something inside of him yelled at him for being rather rude, but he felt like the subject couldn't be quite avoided. When Allen continued, he _knew_ it couldn't be avoided. "Germany always seems so rough at first, but the locals are always nice behind their loud voices. Mana told me that before he travelled here."

Lavi moved a hand over to rub at the white locks on top of his comrade's head. The younger protested and pushed him off but admittedly felt a little lighter, "My old gramps said the same thing to me before." His swatted away hand immediately counterattacked by wrapping itself around Allen's shoulders. Allen looked like he was about to move out of the embrace but, for some reason, didn't. He simply walked in line with the other.

"It must be nice."

Both stopped when they heard the loud sound of cheering men. A pub sat, alive, in the middle of the dreary, empty night streets. Even from where they stood, the entire area stunk of heavy alcohol. Allen visibly retracted.

"You want to walk back now?" Lavi asked.

Allen was shivering now. But he stopped himself after a while, clenching his fists. He walked towards the small building, looking determined and sad but overall, forlorn.

He was already walking towards the lit windows when Lavi began to protest, "Allen, hey, Allen come on now." The boy opened the door and disappeared inside.

So Lavi reluctantly followed him, frowning at the way the air tasted like drunken men.

* * *

"Do you even remember what happened three months ago?" Allen ignored him, raising his hand to order something. The bartender looked at him, trying to scrutinize an age but just relented to relying on the grey shade of his hair and giving him something nice and strong. "Allen, stop ignoring me here, I'm serious!"

Lavi, to be honest, was afraid. This was completely uncharacteristic of him. The fizzing liquid went down the boy's throat quickly. Instantly, the hand was raised for a second helping.

The redhead caught the boy's hand and slapped it down onto the bar table. "Allen." he said firmly, forcing the boy to look him in the one eye he had. But the boy only wept, squeezing his hand on the handle of the empty beer cup. Lavi felt quite proud of himself when he was able to escort the boy out, quickly dropping a bit of money to satisfy the bartender.

"What are you thinking, are you crazy?" He asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the singing fellows. "I'm serious here, _what's gotten into you_?!"

Allen stared blankly ahead, having to hold onto Lavi just to walk straight. As amusing as it was to know one shot did enough to smash Allen, Lavi couldn't find anything particularly funny at that moment. It all happened too fast for him to react. Initially, he thought Allen was moving in to gamble like he usually did but the second he saw the boy take a seat at the bar, he knew he was wrong. And when he was trying to talk the boy out of it, he already had downed an entire cup.

He honestly thought the boy had healed a little bit at least within the three months he spent wallowing around in his room. Lavi would drop by a lot, consoling him and he would be surprised to see Allen shrug into _his_ room when he was too covered in paperwork to drop by himself. It was troubling, but he didn't care. The way Allen would look at him with dead eyes made him want to wretch out his heart and let it bleed and beat on his desk.

And it took three months for the color to return in Allen's eyes. It took three months for his real smiles to happen again. It took three months to make him _laugh_.

And if not healed, he at least figured Allen had _learnt_. The boy's legs eventually gave in. He slumped next to the taller figure next to him, crying a little more than he probably should.

"This isn't good for a man's pride." Lavi rambled jokingly to himself, kneeling down next to the white-haired boy. "Allen, calm down now, it's okay."

What he got in response wasn't what he had expected. Something about Cross's death, something about Mana even, but _this_ was nothing like what he had thought. A simple, "You're mad at me," from the boy's pouting lips and Lavi suddenly felt like dying.

"No, no shh, I'm not mad at you." he said a little too quickly. His hands rubbed the back of the boy's hand and leant him into his chest. He looked so _broken_. Had Lavi's approval mean that much to him?

And the boy cried and cried, hands reaching to grip tightly onto Lavi's black cloak. Then he puked all over the paved street and resumed crying again. What he was rambling about was mostly incomprehensible, but from what Lavi could make out, he was crying out apologies.

Things like '_thank you'_s and '_I'm sorry'_s. Sometimes he would even apologize to Kanda. It wouldn't all be completely new material; sometimes it wasn't even something _anyone_ should feel bad for.

But Lavi would just rub his back and clearly tell him they forgave him. Whomever he was apologizing to he pretended to be them and pretended that they forgave him. He was sure they did, but even if they were like Kanda and probably didn't, he just continued to mindlessly reassure the boy.

Still, the behavior wasn't acceptable on Lavi's terms. When the boy sobered, they would have a long talk.

And Lavi took it upon himself to _make sure_ it wouldn't happen again.

* * *

**A/N: I don't even know what this is. Usually stories should begin with a hint of the future and stuff but I feel like I jam packed this with a bunch of stuff that probably should have waited before they arrived on the footsteps of the plot. And yes, Allen's going a bit nuts. I know it seems a bit out of character of him, but it's sort of part of the plot too. Again, this story is an honest 'what if'. And a way to make Allen cry a lot. And hug Lavi. Yes. Anyway, reviews and constructive criticism is accepted with wide arms. I don't have a beta for this so most of this is sadly you dealing with my poor Engrish. **


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